After 17 years at the Asian Games, Sri Lanka lost its chance to win a medal in athletics.

Aruna Darshan, Nadisha Ramanayake, Kalinga Kumarage and Tarushi Karunaratne finished second in the mixed relay event yesterday at the Olympic Sports Center Stadium or Big Lotus in Hanje, finishing in 3:14.25 minutes, and that time also became a new Sri Lankan record. However, at the end of the event, the Sri Lankan team was disqualified due to a lane violation i.e. switching lanes on the turn of the event (a violation of Article 17.3.1 of the Athletics Rules). With that, Sri Lanka’s medal hopes went in vain.

Previously, all these four players together had set the Sri Lankan record in the mixed relay event at the Asian Athletics Championship held in Thailand last July with a time of 3:15.41 minutes.

Aruna Darshana, who started the competition in this event where five countries came together, finished the first round as the third, Nadisha Ramanayake and Kalinga Kumara ended their laps by keeping the position. Tarushi Karunaratne, who took the baton in the final round, overtook the Indian player and finished the event in second place.

Bahrain (3:14.02) won the gold medal in the event, while Kazakhstan won the bronze medal after India (3:14.34) won the silver medal.

The last time Sri Lanka won a medal in athletics was at the Doha Asian Games in 2006.

Meanwhile, Sarangi Silva, who competed in the women’s long jump event, finished 7th with 6.14 meters. However, she could not even come close to her personal best. Having shown a personal best of 6.65 meters, she had shown a performance of 6.42 meters in the meet held in Diyagama last April to be selected for the Asian Games.

In this event, China’s Shiqi XIONG won the gold medal with a performance of 6.73 m. Indian athlete Ancy SOJAN (6.63 m) and Chinese athlete Nga Yan (6.50 m) won the silver and bronze medals. It is special that all these three players showed their best personal performance yesterday.

Yesterday, a notable event in the athletic field was the men’s 110m hurdles event where two gold medals were won. In this competition held last night, Japan’s Shunya Takayama finished the race with Kuwait’s Yaqoub ALYOUHA in 13.41 seconds. As a result, the organizers awarded gold medals to both of them, and China’s Zhuoyi XU won the bronze medal in the event.

Badminton

Viren Nettasinghe, who is the only badminton player at this year’s Games, beat Bhutan’s Anish Gurung 2-0 in the men’s singles round of 64 yesterday. Viren won the first round with a score of 21-6 and won the second round with a score of 21-14. He will face Mongolia’s Sumiyasuren Enkhbat in the round of 32 today.

Squash

Ravindu Laksiri, who made it to the last 16 in the squash men’s singles, took on Malaysia’s Addeen Idrakie, where he lost 3-1. Ravindu won 12-10 in the first round of the heated match, and the remaining 3 rounds were won by the Malaysian player by 11-6, 11-7 and 13-11. The Sri Lankan team competing in the mixed doubles ‘B’ group of this event had to lose 2-1 in the match against the Philippines yesterday. Although Shamil Vakil and Chanitma Sinale managed to win the first round of this match with 11-9 points, the Philippines team was able to win the second round by 11-4 and 11-0 points. The Sri Lankan will play against China today.

Archery

In Archery Compound Men’s Individual Elimination, Sanjeeva Wasantha Kumara, who competed in the round of 32, entered the round of 16 by defeating the Mongolian player, while Sanjeeva scored 139 points, the Mongolian player could score only 137 points. In the round of 16, Sanjeeva had to lose to the player from Chinese Taipei (148-128). Anuradha Karunaratne, who competed the women’s competition in this event, won against the UAE player by 135-127 points and lost to the Indian player in the round of 16. The score was 145-132.

Sajeev de Silva, who joined the last 32 players in the Recurve Men’s Individual Elimination event yesterday, lost to the Kazakhstani player, and the score was recorded as 6-5. With this, Sri Lanka’s participation in archery at this year’s sports festival came to an end.

Cricket semi-finals from today

The men’s quarter-finals of the Asian Games cricket event will begin today (3). Nepal, Hong Kong and Malaysia qualified for this round by competing in the preliminary round, while India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, who are ahead of the ICC rankings, will join this tournament from the semi-final round. This is the third sporting event in the history of Asian sports where the cricket event has included, and it is special that this is the first time that the Indian cricket team is taking part.

Under this round, the first match will be played between India and Nepal today. The second match will be played between Pakistan and Hong Kong. Sri Lanka’s first match is scheduled to be played tomorrow (4) against Afghanistan. After completing the preliminary round of the tournament, Malaysia scored a huge victory by 194 runs against Thailand in the final match held yesterday.

Meanwhile, in weightlifting, Indika Dissanayake will compete in the men’s 73 kg weight class, and Nadisha Lekamge from athletics will compete in the women’s javelin event at 5.40 pm. Gayanthika Abeyratne and Tarushi Karunaratne will compete in the 800m event starting at 6.50 am local time, Gayanthika will compete in the second race of the preliminary round and Tarushi will participate in the third race. At 7.20 am, the preliminary rounds of the men’s 400m relay event will be held. Aruna Darshana, Kalinga Kumarage, Rajitha Rajakaruna, Pasindu Kodikara and Dinuka Deshan represent the Sri Lankan team for this event.

China is at the forefront

China has managed to take the lead in the medal table without any challenge, and as of yesterday afternoon, they had won 142 gold medals. Japan and South Korea were in a battle for second place with 30 gold medals each, while India is fourth with 13 gold medals. Sri Lanka, who won a silver medal, is in 29th position.